The present invention relates to a cleaning wiper for a jetting head that removes jetted liquid sticking to a jetting plane of the jetting head and to a liquid jetting apparatus.
Heretofore, for example, with respect to jetting head 2 in an ink jet printer equipped with a liquid jetting apparatus, a plurality of jetting ports 22 each jetting ink as a drop are provided on jetting plane 2a. The jetting head 2 is usually maintained at an interval of recording images in the prescribed number. To be concrete, for eliminating clogging caused by an increase of ink viscosity or by adherence of ink or clogging caused by air bubbles or dust generated in a flow path that leads to jetting port 22, the jetting plane 2a of the jetting head 2 is covered by suction cap 61A hermetically, and then, is drawn out by suction pump 64A through the suction cap 61A so that the aforementioned clogging may be eliminated.
Then, after completion of the suction stated above, the suction cap 61A is detached from the jetting plane 2a of the jetting head 2. In this case, as shown in FIG. 7(b), ink containing air bubbles tends to stick to the jetting plane 2a, and ink remains on the jetting plane 2a. If the ink is allowed to stay on the jetting plane 2a, clear images cannot be recorded on a recording medium. Therefore, there is known one wherein wiper member 63A having appropriate elasticity rubs the jetting plane 2a to remove ink staying on the jetting plane 2a after detachment of the suction cap 61A, as shown in FIG. 8 (for example, Japanese Patent No. 3232135).
However, if ink wettability for wiper member 63A is high and a contact angle is small when the wiper member 63A rubs the jetting plane 2a to remove ink staying on the jetting plane 2a as in Japanese Patent No. 3232135, the ink sometimes leaks from a slight clearance between the jetting plane 2a and the wiper member 63A, which means that ink that fails to be removed remains on the jetting plane 2a. 
Further, in Japanese TOKKAI No. 2003-165232, the inventors of the present invention disclose an invention wherein a cleaning member that cleans an ink-jetting surface of a recording head is provided, and the cleaning member is made of an ink-repellent material having an angle of contact with ink of 50° or more. In this invention, however, there is no description about a warning to be sent out when the cleaning member is deteriorated.
There further is Japanese Patent No. 3255313 by the inventors of the present invention, in which the relationship between the number of times of cleaning operations performed the cleaning member and a life of the recording head. However, there is no description about necessity and frequency of replacement of recording heads based on the number of times of cleaning operations performed by the cleaning member.